26 THE FRUITS OF THE COUNTRY-SIDE 



Autumn ^ will have given place to the dearth of Winter. 

 We may sometimes find on cracking a nut open that in 

 lieu of the kernel we had anticipated we are confronted by 

 a stolid and corpulent maggot ; this, if we had not thus, 

 crashed in upon him, would presently have become the 

 beetle that to entomologists is known as the nut-weevil. 



We sometimes declare, as an evidence of concentration, 

 that the whole matter we are dealing with lies in a 

 nutshell, while the empty shell may be accepted as the 

 symbol of worthlessness. Thus Gower, in his Confessio 

 Amantis^ writes — 



And so recorde I my lesson, 

 And write in my memoriall 

 What I to hir telle shall 

 Right all the matter of my tale, 

 But all is nis worthe a nutte shale. 



Shakespeare, seeing poetry and beauty everywhere, puts 

 even a discarded nutshell to honoured service, for he 

 tells us of swecet Queen Mab, the Queen of Fairyland, 

 that 



Her chariot is an empty hazel nut, 

 Made by the joiner squirrel, or old grub. 

 Time out of mind the fairies' coach-makers. 



How delightful could we but in some quiet woodland 



' Season of mists and yellow fruitfulness, 

 Close bosom friend of the maturing sun. 

 Conspiring with him how to load and bless 

 With fruit the vines that round the thatch-caves run ; 

 To bend with apples the mossed cottage trees, 

 And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core ; 

 To swell the gourd, and plump the liazel shells 

 With a sweet kernel ; to set budding more 

 And still more, later flowers for the bees. 

 Until they think warm days will never cease. 



Keats. 



